To cut down on expenses we decided to have a simple wedding in a small chapel, but just with our parents, maid of honor, and best man in attendance.

Instead of invitations we sent announcements of our marriage to extended family and a few very close friends.

I sewed my own knee length white satin wedding dress, lace jacket, and veil. A lined dress and jacket was my going-away outfit and was made from solid royal blue wool for the skirt part of the dress and a multi-blue printed acetate/polyester for the top of the dress. I enjoyed making both the wedding dress and the going-away outfit, except when I needed to remove a few stitches on the satin when part of the fabric got caught in the seam. (It is best to avoid having to remove stitches on satin.) All in all, I was glad I'd learned to sew and could sew my clothes for this important event in our lives.

It was the summer of my earning money to buy just the necessities for our furnished apartment where we would be living while my husband worked toward his masters degree and I would be working as a secretary on campus.

My friends gave me a wedding shower, and we received some nice items to add to those I was purchasing.

I poured through the newspaper ads for sales on household items and used my lunch hours to shop.

The only early American item I bought was a small area braided rug. A year later it went well with the early American furniture we began to buy.

Whereas in the past two summers I'd found employment with a one employer for the entire summer, this summer was a patchwork quilt of vacation relief jobs in three different attorney offices and an ophthalmologist office. I walked all over the city, submitting my resume in offices where I might be able to get secretarial or receptionist work, and it paid off.

It was the summer of separation.

Since my fiancé was based in another part of the state working for a hotshot fire suppression crew, we only got to see each other once that summer. I took a bus to see him when they finished fighting a fire and had some down time before being called out on another fire.

It was the summer of writing letters and waiting for letters.

Because of not even knowing where my fiancé might be fighting fires because news didn't travel as quickly then, I needed to wait for a letter when he could finally have time to write again, or possibly call from a phone booth. I read and reread his letters.

It was a summer of wondering about his safety while fighting forest fires and while being a passenger in a DC-3 flying to and from them.

It was a summer of sensing that my parents thought I was too young to be getting married. (I was 20 when I got married, although age doesn't always mean maturity.)

Now almost 55 years later, I guess we stumbled our way through the years through thick and thin and have learned a thing or two along the way. We also enlarged our family and that is a very good thing!

10 comments:

I love how you finished the sentence with mini stories about your life. It must have been scary knowing you're husband was our fighting forest fires and not being able to talk to him. My brother is out in Southern California and the recent fires got pretty close to them. I don't know if it was a DC-3 but it was amazing to see a big plane like that fly into an area so low to spray. Those things have nothing on a crop duster.

I really enjoyed these snippets from different summers and am impressed that you sewed your wedding dress and traveling outfit. My mom used to make all of our clothes when we were young but the art remains with her as I never got into a groove where I enjoyed it. I remember the days of waiting for letters and having to save quarters up for long distance phone booth calls. I'm glad your fiance came back to you safely from the fires. That must have been really hard, waiting for news of his safety!

The snippets were actually all from the same summer.I think that I learned to sew because it actually used to be cheaper to sew one's own clothes than to buy them. Sometimes now it seems that isn't the case. It was easy for me to sew my clothes too, because back in the day, I didn't need to make any adjustments to a pattern.Phone calls and letters were so good to receive.